October 21, 2012

I’d like to say it’s hot off the press — but it hasn’t been printed yet. Readers of this blog and the Stone Bank website get the first look.

Thanks to Cyndi Nightengale of Cynbad Media for her work. It wouldn’t be done without her.

If you want to see our goals and restoration plans for the Stone Bank, there’s a good outline in the brochure. You will find it at our website StoneBank.org.

In case you’re wondering, we also need to raise about $5K more to continue work this fall. There is a PayPal link on this page or you can send a check to: Touchstones, Inc., 524 Main Street, PO Box 272, Bottineau, ND 58318.

That’s what some people have asked us about our effort to save the Stone Bank.

“Drive up to Deloraine,” we respond. “That is why.”

Deloraine is a Canadian town about 25 miles from Bottineau. A boom town at the turn of the 20th century, its bustling commercial district had many buildings of brick and stone. But that was then.

Thanks to a photo display in the entry of the Rendezvous Restaurant, we can see that Deloraine. Today’s Deloraine is a different story. This slideshow is a cautionary tale about what gives a town its sense of place and how it can be lost, even though a few traces of the past remain.

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Your Stone Bank blogger doesn’t know how or why Deloraine’s fine buildings were lost. Fire is a likely culprit in some cases — but in others “progress” was probably the reason some buildings were taken down.

Deloraine is a fine town with nice people and a good restaurant. The display of flags from around the globe is impressive. But wouldn’t it be a better town with some of those grand old buildings still standing and in use? We think so.

Any town can become Deloraine — all it takes is indifference, forgetting history and substituting cheap and serviceable buildings for those that are elegant and enduring. Towns all across the country face the same fate if someone doesn’t take up the challenge to save the great buildings. (There are plenty of Deloraines in North Dakota.)

The Stone Bank Project is our effort to save a great building in Bottineau. It’s not easy. It’s probably not even sensible. But it does matter.

October 9, 2012

For your Stone Bank blogger, it was disappointment for lunch, when the call about a grant came at about lunchtime.

As the Rolling Stones famously put it … “you can’t always get what you want.”

And no, we didn’t even get a little bit of what we wanted. A representative of AgriBank called to say that although the Stone Bank is an interesting project that they had decided against sharing their oil-lease riches with us in the form of a grant. Seems that even though the grant information said they were looking for projects of cultural and historic value that there were, uh, constraints on that.

Let’s just say that the instructions were vague. The result? In the short term, the Stone Bank won’t have the financial boost needed to help move the project along.

That brings us to (the very fitting) Stone Quote #5.

Inscribed at the International Peace Garden’s Peace Chapel — quite near the Stone Bank.

That Alexander Graham Bell was one smart cookie.

No regrets! We will just move along and keep working on this great building. A door will open — and it will ROCK!

In the meantime, tell all your friends, relatives and passersby that they can do what AgriBank didn’t do. They can support the restoration of the Stone Bank. There are lots of details on our website: StoneBank.org.

Sometimes the mailbox can be the bearer of bad news and bills. But some days it’s full of birthday cards and good wishes.

A while back we got a great letter from Scott Swanson and he gave us permission to share it with our blog followers.

Scott’s dad owned the Stone Bank for about 50 years — so Scott spent a lot of time during his childhood inside the bank and outside — shoveling.

Here’s his letter:

Letter from Scott Swanson, used with his permission.

If you read this blog, you know that we are working hard to raise the money to continue work to save this wonderful structure. Can you help? We have $25,000 in grant money, but we need to match that with local funds to put the building back on solid footing and move it closer to a new life.

This picture from the Historical Society of ND show the Stone Bank in the 1970s. Do you suppose the 10-speed bike is Scott Swanson’s? Maybe.

Invite your friends and relatives to check out the blog or http://www.StoneBank.org. If you want to fill the Stone Bank’s mailbox with love and good wishes. Send your check to: Touchstones, Inc., 524 Main Street, P.O. Box 272, Bottineau, ND 58318.